in this world

I’ve been remiss over the last seven weeks in not getting L. in to see an orthodontist. I actually did some legwork on this a few months ago at my semi-annual cleaning; I gave them a quick background and I asked them if they had an othro they’d recommend. Conveniently enough, they have one that comes to their office every Thursday to see patients and that seemed like perfect idea for L. She’s about 14-18 months into a two-year program so all we’re looking for are monthly adjustment visits until she returns to Omaha – or wherever – and has them removed.

I finally gave them a call this morning and rehashed the idea with the office manager and queried about getting her in Thursday afternoon. As if. What I unwittingly stumbled into was the maw of the “no people”; you know the tribe – can’t do, won’t get done, that’s impossible, are you fucking crazy? Yes, them. She tells me that he can’t do that kind of work because how could he possibly know (or learn) the inner workings of another ortho? How would he know what her plan was? What if this ortho would have done something different? It CAN’T be done. I pause momentarily before asking her a simple question: Are you telling me that no family has ever moved while having a child in braces? There was a long pause on the line. I followed up with: Do you think people decide not to sell a house and move because Jimmy has three more months in braces and they don’t know about the alchemy of braces in Nebraska yet? I told her that I had the contact information for her man in Omaha and all that needs to be done is to make contact, ask a few questions on the phone (I’m sure the two orthos understand the language), and then set-up an appointment. She takes my number and tells me that she’ll contact their ortho and call me back. Sounds good, I say, so I’ll hear back from you this afternoon? What? No? She tells me that she’ll talk to him on Thursday when he comes in; she is kidding, right? Does this guy live where there’s no phone? Maybe somewhere that requires him to teleport in from another galaxy? They are killing me.

(p.s. I just called back to get the number of the guy and do the work myself but the afternoon woman just said she’d give him a call and call me right back. Go figure?)

I had class on Friday night so I sent The Forty to see Orestes at the Folger Shakespeare Theater (I’d bought the seats about six months ago prior to getting my class schedule and child moving here.) They had a quick dinner in Rosslyn and then Metro’d in to see the show. When they picked me up after class there were great reviews (WaPo review here) from both girls so it appears their night out was a success. I’d taken L. to the Caps’ game the previous night and told her during intermission that she’d be hard-pressed to attend two more different events on back-to-back nights: crazy sports fans in red and a Euripides play.

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